A Very Oxford Scandal: Something Rotten in the English Establishment NYP JAN 2026

Publication Date: Jan 2026

The long lasting and extremely expensive dispute between Christ Church College Oxford and its Dean (Head of College) has become a cause celebre which spilled over into the outside world - not just into academic life, but Church and charitable establishments as well.

After the settlement of the legal dispute, there are still far too many loose ends in this painful saga. Award-winning former Guardian journalist, Stephen Bates has set out to tell the true story of this episode in a way that is dispassionate and objective. The result is a book that reads like a detective story and moves beyond the obscurity and the venom which surrounds this sad tale into a clearer vision of what went wrong and why the episode must never happen again.